 | |
| Categories | Men's magazines |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Monthly |
| Publisher | Magna Publishing Group |
| Founder | Ronald L. Fenton |
| Founded | 1969 |
| First issue | November 1972 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English, many others |
| Website | www |
| ISSN | 0195-072X |
Gallery is an adult sex magazine published by Magna Publishing Group. It is one of the more popular "skin" magazines that arose on the Playboy magazine pattern in the 1970s.
Gallery was launched by Ronald L. Fenton and trial attorney F. Lee Bailey in Chicago, Illinois. [1] The first issue appeared on newsstands in November, 1972 bearing an uncanny resemblance to Playboy magazine, even using the same style font for the cover. Many people therefore assumed Gallery was also published by Hugh Hefner as a companion publication to Playboy. [2] After Hefner sent a letter to Bailey pointing out the magazine's similarities, the layout of Gallery was quickly changed. [3]
Financial difficulties plagued the magazine from the start, causing Bailey to leave during its inaugural year. [1] Following publication of the January 1974 issue, Fenton was forced to forfeit ownership of the magazine to its distributor. [4]
Montcalm Publications, based in New York, eventually acquired Gallery and added it to its portfolio of periodicals. [5] Montcalm also published The Twilight Zone Magazine in the 1980s, apparently in imitation of Penthouse magazine's offshoot Omni . [6]
Montcalm Publishing went bankrupt in March 2008, owing many photographers and models unpaid wages; some were owed as much as $100,000. [7]
On April 30, 2008, Gallery magazine was purchased by the Magna Publishing Group. [8] On December 22, 2015, Magna Publishing Group was acquired by 1-800-PHONESEX. [9]
In addition to pornographic content, Gallery also published articles related to current events and JFK assassination conspiracy theories, most notably by L. Fletcher Prouty.
Gallery has long featured a "Girl Next Door" contest in which photographers submit pictures of amateur models (similar to Hustler's "Beaver Hunt.") From each group of monthly entries, one model winner is selected. At the end of the year, one is crowned "Girl Next Door of the Year" and awarded a cash prize of $25,000. The most famous winner is retired porn star Stacy Valentine; at the time of her selection she was Oklahoma housewife Stacy Baker. [10]
Between 1980 and 1983 Gallery published 37 original mystery short stories by Isaac Asimov (see The Union Club Mysteries ).
Hugh Marston Hefner was an American magazine publisher. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of Playboy magazine, a publication with revealing photographs and articles which provoked charges of obscenity.
Playboy is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother.
Suze Randall is an English model, photographer, and pornographer. Randall was the first female staff photographer for both Playboy and Hustler. She is one of the early female porn film directors; she made Kiss and Tell in 1980. She is president of adult content website Suze Network.
The Pubic Wars, a pun on the Punic Wars, was a rivalry between the American pornographic magazines Playboy and Penthouse during the 1960s and 1970s. Each magazine strove to show just a little bit more nudity on their female models than the other, without getting too crude. The term was coined by Playboy owner Hugh Hefner. In 1950s and 1960s America, it was generally agreed that nude photographs were not pornographic unless they showed pubic hair or genitals. Mainstream mass-market photography was careful to come close to this line without stepping over it. Consequently, the depiction of pubic hair was de facto forbidden in U.S. pornographic magazines of the era.
Penthouse is a men's magazine founded by Bob Guccione and published by Los Angeles-based Penthouse World Media, LLC. It combines urban lifestyle articles and softcore pornographic pictures of women that, in the 1990s, evolved into hardcore pornographic pictures of women.
High Society is a U.S. pornographic magazine. In addition to hardcore pictorials of nude models, it also has feature articles and occasional celebrity pictorials.
Playgirl was an American magazine that featured general interest articles, lifestyle and celebrity news, in addition to nude or semi-nude men. In the 1970s and 1980s, the magazine printed monthly and was marketed mainly to women, although it had a significant gay male readership.
Robert Charles Joseph Edward Sabatini Guccione was an American photographer and publisher. He founded the adult magazine Penthouse in 1965. This was aimed at competing with Hugh Hefner's Playboy, but with more explicit erotic content, a special style of soft-focus photography, and in-depth reporting of government corruption scandals and the art world. By 1982 Guccione was listed in the Forbes 400 wealth list, and owned one of the biggest mansions in Manhattan. However, he made some extravagant investments that failed, and the growth of free online pornography in the 1990s greatly diminished his market. In 2003, Guccione's publishers filed for bankruptcy and he resigned as chairman.
Leroy Fletcher Prouty served as Chief of Special Operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President John F. Kennedy. A colonel in the United States Air Force, he retired from military service to become a bank executive. He subsequently became a critic of U.S. foreign policy, particularly the covert activities of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which he believed was working on behalf of a secret world elite.
Pornographic magazines or erotic magazines, sometimes known as adult, sex or top-shelf magazines, are magazines that contain content of an explicitly sexual nature. Publications of this kind may contain images of attractive naked subjects, as is the case in softcore pornography, and, in the usual case of hardcore pornography, depictions of masturbation, oral, vaginal or anal sex.
Stacy Valentine is an American former pornographic actress. She is a member of both the AVN and XRCO Halls of Fame.
The centerfold or centrefold of a magazine is the inner pages of the middle sheet, usually containing a portrait, such as a pin-up or a nude. The term can also refer to the model featured in the portrait. In saddle-stitched magazines, the centerfold does not have any blank space cutting through the image.
Taylor Wane is a British actress, director, model, entrepreneur, and former pornographic performer. She was inducted into the AVN Hall of Fame in 2005 and the XRCO Hall of Fame in 2014 as well as Legends Hall of Fame. Wane was also the Penthouse Pet of the Month for June 1994.
Jelena Jensen is an American pornographic film actress, nude model, and webcam model.
Oui was a men's adult pornographic magazine published in the United States and featuring explicit nude photographs of models, with full page pin-ups, centerfolds, interviews and other articles, and cartoons. Oui ceased publication in 2007.
Swank is an adult or pornographic magazine published in the United States. The first incarnation was launched by Victor Fox of Fox Comics in 1941 as a men's lifestyle and pin-up magazine in the style of Esquire. Around 1954–1955, it was relaunched by Martin Goodman, the founder of Marvel Comics, and ran spicy adventure or suspense fiction by the likes of Ian Fleming, Graham Greene, Norman Mailer and Arthur C. Clarke. Humorist Bruce Jay Friedman was an editor in the late 1950s.
Genesis is a men's pornographic magazine which began publication in 1973. It exclusively features female stars of the adult film industry. Branding itself as "The Home of Porn's Hottest Stars", Genesis features pictorials, exclusive columns by adult film stars, interviews, feature articles, movie reviews and news. It is published by the Magna Publishing Group, which also publishes Swank, Gent, Velvet, and many other popular men's magazines.
Playboy Shootout was an adult reality competition airing on Playboy TV produced by America's Next Top Model director Claudia Frank. Hosted by Brande Roderick, it pits 10 professional photographers and 10 models in a series of photo shoot elimination rounds. The final 2 contestants get the opportunity to be published in Playboy Magazine.
Rebecca Brooke was an American former pornographic film actress and model who specialized in sexploitation films, including both hardcore and softcore pornography in the 1970s. Vern L. Bullough wrote that Brooke was "one of the true beauties to grace the porn screen."
